Todd Rants about idiots, or entertains us with nonsense

August 2006

I express my deepest sympathies to the friends and family of those who perished here in Lexington Sunday morning when Comair Flight 5191 crashed at Bluegrass Airport.

<>Monday, the local paper, the Lexington Herald-Leader, desperate to give its two cents worth (when they didn't have even one cent worth of input) broke tradition of not posting a Monday editorial by publishing this drivel.

<>My beefs with the editorial are multiple: First, the editorial staff had NOTHING to add to the discussion, but they couldn't wait until they did. Second, if you read the first two paragraphs, it begs the question, "Where exactly did they expect the next air disaster to occur?" Third, they failed to include such a simple statement as, "Our deepest sympathies go out to the families who lost loved ones in the accident." Fourth, the paper lauds the workers who said prayers over the deceased, when in any other instance, it would bash civil servants from engaging in prayer. Fifth, the question it demands be answered, "Why did the pilot take the runway meant for smaller craft?" may never be fully answered, especially if the lone survivor of the crash dies before he can give any sort of explanation. Sixth, the closing paragraph does little more than exacerbate unwarranted fears that this tragedy could easily happen again.

<>Comair will be taking family members who are here in Lexington out to the crash site tomorrow for a private memoial service. The media are expected to be banned from attending.

It has recently been reported in the news that the two reporters for the San Francisco Chronicle, Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada are being threatened with jail time if they refuse to divulge the source who illegally leaked grand jury testimony from the BALCO case that implicated such baseball stars as Gary Sheffield, Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds as having used illegal substances to improve their bodies for playing baseball.

The reporters, their editors, their lawyers, and other journalists are now screaming that such a threat is unfair.

I think their pleas are full of crap.

Regardless of what was accomplished by reporting the details that were leaked, these two reporters knew beforehand that leaking grand jury testimony was a crime. Not that the reporters are criminals, but the leaker of the information is. These reporters should have had the foresight to realize that printing this leaked testimony would likely lead them to the position they are in now -- reveal their source, or go to jail. By reporting the information, they accepted this risk, and took upon themselves the responsibility to do jail time if that was what was required of them.

Williams and Fainaru-Wada should be content with their fate of facing jail time, likening it as a small price to pay for the goal they accomplished, which was forcing Major League Baseball and the Players' Accociation to negotiate tougher rules and standards for drug testing.

The only person who can save them is the person who leaked the testimony to them. Much like the Valerie Plame case, if the source either comes forward or gives the reporters permission to divulge their source, then the reporters can be freed. But until then, journalistic ethics dictate that these two reporters pay the price they knew they'd be required to pay before they published the leaked grand jury testimony. <>